SHAPED BY BOOKS AND BOOKSHOPS

Maddy, my lovely granddaughter reading in Devonport Library

My wonderful parents had the great foresight to sign up to a Book club when I was little.  Several times a year a new book would arrive by post.  We were four daughters and I was the second eldest. We lived on a sheep farm in the Highveld of the Transvaal in the Republic of South Africa.

"Trados die Boesman Swerwer" by P. G. Schoeman arrived by post on one occasion and this book had an indelible impact on my twelve year old self. I so identified with the struggles of the wild Kalahari bushmen and their day to day struggle to find food that I invented childhood games and imagined being a Kalahari bushmen myself, only my name was Agarob. These childhood games involved my two younger sisters as well and we became our own tribe, spending days on end running wild in and around the river that ran through our farm. Our "Kalahari" was the riverbank. Summer and Autumn flowed seamlessly into one and the world outside did not exist for the three of us as we lived our lives through Trados and his tribe of Kalahari bushmen. 

I was in my mid-twenties when quite by accident "The Seven Story Mountain" by Thomas Merton came into my life. He was just there one day. I remember reading the book and having to put it down at times because it was just so beautiful so profound, my heart was not big enough to take it in all at once. I loved Gethsemane,  I loved Thomas Merton an I started loving the Holy Catholic Church at that time... I think. 

The Autobiography of Margaret Mary Alacoque was the turning point for me. My whole world changed with this book. Once I discovered the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the visions that Margaret Mary Alacoque shared with the world I knew that I want to devote my whole life to the most Sacred Heart of Jesus.

I think that books come as guides into one's life at a time ... when one is ready to be guided. "The Good Life" by Scott Nearing flew like Hailey's Comet through my universe not so long ago. After reading this and other books by Helen and Scott Nearing, I too wanted to live an intentional life ... a life with meaning. I no longer just wanted to exist. I too wanted to chop my own firewood, grow my own food and ... and to "pay as I go".

The epic biography of Hieromonk Seraphim Rose tells the unique story of a man who, having grown up in a typical American home in southern California, became one of the greatest teachers of Orthodox Christianity in our times, loved and revered throughout Russia and Eastern Europe.  This book traces Fr. Seraphim's intense search for truth and his philosophical development, setting forth his message and offering a glimpse into the soul of a man who lived, even while on this earth, in the otherworldly Kingdom of God.

When I was just a twelve year old child, roaming wild and untamed as a "Kalahari Bushman" ... it was because of the impact of a book that I have read.  "The life of Seraphim Rose" opened up a way of being in this world without being part of this world! 

 Impact of books!